Chapter 1

The sound of wind rushing through the tall grass that was sprouting out of cracks of cemented paths was calming. The sun was up in the sky, shining soothingly on Emi's skin. It had been a few days since she escaped from the high school. Now she was strolling around a once populated area of the town she was walking through.

There were a lot of shops at every street, of course, most of them were already abandoned and left to decay. Emi noticed that a lot of those shops had been party destroyed, glass lying everywhere and doors broken in. None of these damages looked fresh, so she assumed that it had happened quite a few years back. Probably around the time when everything happened.

Emi stopped walking along the wide street surrounded by all those shops. Her legs and feet were hurting badly. She had been walking since the sun was up and hadn't taken a proper rest during it either.

Her eyes scanned the area. Shops, grass, buildings falling apart and a lot of shady-looking houses. Her mind went through all possibilities that she could think of. In the end she decided to take a rest outside, not wanting to risk any attacks from ghosts or the ceiling falling down on her.

To her right, she saw small sets of stones in the shape of cylinders.

"I could rest there for a bit…" She mused, approaching the weird shapes.

She had never seen those kinds of stones shapes before. Since they seemed to be manmade they should have some kind of purpose for being positioned near the street. She patted her hand on the surface of the cylinder shaped stone, feeling some dry moss growing on it.

"Good, it's not wet or anything" She took a seat on the stone, her feet and legs that had to carry the weight of her body were relieved from their duty. Emi sighed in content when the pain subsided although only a little. The aching was still present, but without the constant support for her weight she could feel the accumulated blood inside her legs decline.

Emi sighed happily. Now that she could rest her legs, she felt so much better. For some time now she's been suspecting that the distances she covered were growing lesser and lesser each day and that was a problem to her.

To fix that, she forced herself to walk more than her legs could endure. The first days were the worst but after some days she could more or less bear with the pain.

Emi could feel a warm breeze pass through the street, tenderly caressing her auburn hair with it. She flinched when some strands of her hair fell into her eyes. With one of her hands she removed them and tucked them behind her ears only for them to be carried away by the wind again.

It was quiet in the area. Only the wind made sounds by blowing through tall grass, small crevices or moving light objects like curtains or old newspaper.

Emi wondered how the city must have been like when there were still a lot of people around. She read somewhere that the street she was in had been one of the busiest with a lot of people going in and out of these shops.

"Lots of people, bustling streets, packed stores, neon lights during the night illuminating the city…" She fantasied how the city would have looked like back then, many, many years ago. All the things she read and heard about seemed like a fairy tale to her or a time she never would have imagined with all these ruins nowadays.

But there was proof, right in front of her eyes. Her eyes racked all over the ruins that were once those picturesque sceneries. Her heart clenched painfully, a frown formed on her face.

She had been wandering around for quite a long time. Despite that she never met anyone else or saw anything resembling what was left of those things in the past. She'd been wandering around for so long and yet…

Her heart was now painfully tight the more she thought about. She had to stop. Emi's breath came out fast and ragged. Tears were gathering in her eyes, dangerously close to falling down.

"Why…? I've been searching for so long! And yet, and yet… Why isn't anyone here!?" Emi cried out. The tears were now freely falling from her eyes, dripping down on the dusty asphalt. With both of her hands she wiped away the tears, but they kept coming out of her eyes. Eventually her sleeves were wet with salty water.

So many months, days, hours and minutes! She had been searching so long! Just why couldn't she find anyone!?

The realization that she was alone, facing dangers and struggling to survive out there hit her hard. She had no one she could depend on nor was anyone nearby if she ever was in danger. Alone, fighting through countless days for absolutely nothing.

She cried once more, her voice quivering when she breathed. The tug on her heart was squeezing the air out of her lungs. Emi tried to regulate her breathing, but it was hard to concentrate with her mind breaking apart.

Sobs rose out of her mouth after crying for so much. She hadn't cried since a few years ago. She had told herself that crying wouldn't do anything. Crying wouldn't help her nor will anyone come to her rescue if she ever did.

And now, here she was, sobbing like a little girl, all alone in an empty street. The tears were still dripping down her cheeks although in a smaller amount so there wasn't any need for her to wipe them. Emi's eyes were bloodshot and partly burning from the excessive rubbing to make the tears stop falling.

She sniffled, tired from all the crying and venting. Although Emi had told herself to never cry again, it felt good on her mind. Something inside had lifted too, like an additional weight being hoisted from her.

Regardless she still felt depressed. Those lingering feelings of being lost were nevertheless somewhere transfixed in her. Emi didn't like it. She didn't want to remember any of these.

Not that it mattered anymore at this point. Her search for people was fruitless and furthermore it would be pointless to continue to do so. After all she had been searching for some months. The chances were low and she wasn't sure if she could make it through with all those monsters lurking around.

A sob forced itself out of Emi. She should really stop thinking about it, but she just couldn't! Her situation was absolutely hopeless. Scarce food and water supplies, roaming ghosts, her dropping walking pace and the non-existing people in every city she had been.

Were there really no other people besides her? Was she really alone here? What should she do now?

Another sob escaped her. Emi felt tears gathering in her eyes again. Just what has she been doing all this time then!?

The auburn haired girl lifted her hands up to her eyes, carefully wiping away the tears that had started to fall again. She hissed when the salty liquid touched the aggravated skin under her eyes. Emi was so busy trying to suppress her depressive thoughts and stinging pain that she almost overheard a muffled crackle.

Emi perked up by the sound, instantly overrun by a flood of panic. She hastily jumped off the stone cylinder and grabbed for the rusty knife idly sitting in her bag. The knife, held in both of her feeble hands, was pointed protectively in front of her. The girl's restless eyes scrutinized every inch of the surroundings.

"How was this possible? It wasn't even night yet!" She went pale, fingers and toes growing colder with the drain of blood. Cold sweat was forming all over her body. Emi could feel the anxiety creep up again. That dreadful feeling when something was scaring her, something that would definitely harm her.

She should probably run, but she was too tired to even power walk. Her legs felt funny, strained and screaming at every move she made. Even shifting her weight from one foot to the other was hurting her. Perhaps it had been a very bad decision to rest up in the middle of a street with so many buildings encompassing it.

Emi jumped in her skin as a new crackle followed. Her breath hitched. The noise sounded louder this time. It resembled a screech, a really weird one that Emi never had heard of. She didn't recall such an odd sounding screech. It was safe to assume it was some kind of new ghost type haunting this place.

"If that's the case I should escape as fast as possible" Emi turned towards the direction she had intended to go before she took to rest and started to dash. However her legs had given out causing the auburn haired girl to trip.

Before she could register what was happened, she felt unbelievable pain coursing through her head, hands and legs. She screamed in agony. The fact that hostile ghosts could be nearby didn't cross her mind in that state. All she could discern was the overall pain flowing through her being.

Tears prickled in her eyes, hands burning and air knocked out of her lungs. Emi struggled with the aches but managed to calm down enough to see why her body hurt so badly.

Apparently, after she had tripped Emi's hands had instinctively tried to shield the body and thus took the most damage from the fall. Additionally her hands weren't able to withstand the heavy pressure from gravity and her weight, causing the rest of the body to collide with the cold ground.

Her head had crashed on the ground which was the cause of her dizziness and pain on her face. Her belly had also fallen flat on the ground, temporarily knocking away the air in the lungs. Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw the rusty knife she had been holding lying innocently resting a few feet out of reach of her hands.

The frail girl moaned in pain, her hands were really burning. She supposed that she had slid on her hands while crashing into the ground.

Bzzt!

Emi slowly registered the noise, her mind still fuzzy from the sudden fall. When she finally organized her mind, she scrambled away into the middle of the street, looking into every direction. She had completely forgotten about the bizarre noise.

Bzzt!

Emi attempted to stand up and run, but all she could do was pathetically flop back on her bottom. She slowly realized with every second that she had messed up. Not only was she losing every reason to continue what she had been doing, but she was injured, hurting and most of all crying again.

The urge to flee from the bizarre noise dissolved into thin air. The dejected girl sobbed uncontrollably, hugging her knees and curling into the smallest ball possible.

"…An…par…" Another set of those erratic screeches reverberated throughout the street, but this time it sounded just a little different than before.

Emi took no heed of the change, too busy with bawling her eyes out that she missed that tiny bit of difference.

"…Hel…ill…Come!" Emi peered from her knees. Her vision was blurry due to her tears and her mind was unfocused, yet she could hear a few illegible words coming out from somewhere. The worn out girl sniffed, wiped her tears and forcibly pushed herself up.

There wasn't any reason for her to investigate those noises. For all she knew it could have been a hostile ghost trying to lure her into a trap. However something in the very far back of her mind was nagging her to look, search and find the source of it.

Look! There is something there! You can do it!

Emi staggered past the stone cylinders she had been sitting on and made her way towards the houses with shaky feet. The odd noises were growing louder the closer she was to the houses.

"Any…look!" This time she could hear parts of words. There weren't any full sentences, but it did raise Emi's hopes, only a little bit. If the voice was from a human, it should respond back if she called out to it, right? She tried her luck.

"Is anyone… there? Where are you?" She wheezed out, her voice cracking midsentence. Silence. There was no response to her questions. Her heart dropped. It was too good to be true after all. She was an idiot for believing that there would be a person inside those ruins.

"If anyone… here…help…come!"

But the voice of that person sounded real. Real enough to convince Emi to look for it. She didn't know if it was a human or a ghost, so she had to find out, right? After she proved herself wrong, she might as well give up entirely.

"If anyone is here… help will come!" Emi supported herself on the wall with her hand, slowly walking along it.

"Don't… -rry! I'm here… alive!" Alive, a person was alive. Emi tried again to call out to the person.

"If you're here, please answer me!" She desperately shouted. No answer again. The voice repeated the same sentences over and over again. Sometimes words were left out, other times words were unclear.

The possibility of running into a human was slim. If that person was really alive, then why was he not answering? Couldn't he hear her? He only repeated the same words over and over again.

"If anyone is here…!" The voice repeated, but Emi wasn't able to hear the rest of the sentence. The moment her hand which was supporting her, leaned on a door, she fell. The door had given out under the slight pressure she applied and broke down with Emi following after it.

That was the second time she fell today. Her body crashed onto the ground. She moaned in pain, pushing herself up. Dust had flown up, concealing the inner structure of the building she had fallen in. The girl coughed as she accidentally inhaled some dust.

"If anyone is here, please answer. I'm sure help will come" The male voice was clear that she had been hearing for minutes now, was clear, but it still felt weird to Emi. It didn't sound like as if that person was actually saying it.

The dust had cleared. Emi saw several bookshelves and boxes standing deserted around the room. She stood up, brushing off some excess dust that had landed on her clothes. The room was mostly scattered with broken things, a lot of shattered pieces of glass included.

Emi stared under her feet, noticing that the door had protected her from falling into a heap of razor sharp glasses. It might have been her, pierced and cut by those glasses instead of the door. She shuddered at the thought.

She stepped carefully inside the room. The inside was fairly darks due to the lack of windows or open windows. The glasses under her feet were cracking when she stepped over them, but she didn't pay any mind to them. Her goal was to find the voice.

For some reason the voice was silent. Not even the bizarre noises were there. The moment she stepped inside, silence greeted her. Moments before that she could have sworn that the voice was as clear as clean river water.

Emi took a moment to look around the room. There were a lot of small transparent cases inside the shelves. Round shiny plates were inside those cases. She remembered seeing those things before, but her memories of it were quite vague.

Aside from these cases were a lot of other strange looking things. She limped further inside, arriving at a tall shelf. Somewhere on the shelf was a medium sized machine. Emi picked it up, tip toeing as she did so since it was placed on one of the higher shelves.

The device had the shape of a rectangle. It was neither too heavy nor too light. Emi wondered what kind of device it was and what it was for. The auburn haired girl tried to shake it, but nothing it didn't make any sound.

The front, she guessed, had one circle shaped thing near the upper right corner. She gently touched the circle shape. The shape unlike the other parts of the device was made out of some kind of metal. It hadn't a smooth surface, there were small gaps neatly made into the shape. Moreover the circle wasn't flat either. The circle was one big bump embedded into the plastic body of the device.

Emi didn't understand the design of the device. She had never seen something like that before.

Bzzt! Crash!

The bizarre noise returned, startling the poor girl. The thing that frightened her the most was the fact that the device she was holding had produced that exact bizarre noise. The frame had shaken a little, causing more fright in the already distressed girl.

The fright had caused her to drop the little machine. It landed with a loud crash on the ground. Emi watched as parts of the device broke off the frame and flying into various directions of the floor.

BZZzzztt….

The noise faded and then completely died down. Emi had taken several steps back, both hands in the air protectively held up in a rigid posture. After the noise died down she relaxed.

Emi carefully collected the damaged device from the ground. Now that it was damaged, parts broken off, she was able to see the inside. There were a lot of small things inside it, connected and stuck together.

It kind of resembled a flashlight, just more complex than one. But that wasn't the most surprising thing. That little device was the source of those bizarre noises and the mysterious voice. She was still a bit stumped about the fact that this device made two different kinds of noises.

One thing was for sure though. The device she had found could be something of a lead to find a person, but the problem was that she accidentally broke it while being scared. In other words she was back to square one.